I have always wanted to do this topic like this for a very long time, what inspired it was from the FlyingOmelette.com websites: http://www.flyingomelette.com/greatgames/overrated.html "The Top 25 Most Overrated Games I've Played" section of the website with its Yoshi's Story entry where the part that says "I think this game, even much moreso than Super Mario 64, is responsible for killing 2D games on console systems." "Once Yoshi's Story came out, it's what everyone associated 2D games with, so whenever a new one was announced, people would automatically think it'd suck because they were expecting it to be like Yoshi's Story." This got me think this for other video game genres that have had similar situations related with Yoshi's Story being responsible for killing 2D games on console systems. Granted this is rather outdated now because in the 7th Gen Consoles and up 2D games did make a come back thanks to XBLA/PSN download games, Indie games, Little Big Planet series, New Super Mario Bros games on the Wii/Wii U, Shovel Knight etc.

Here are some games that where infamously responsible for killing/ruined the respective genres Reception certain regions/consoles/gave negative stigmas, etc?

We all know that back in the 80's early 90's pre-Street Fighter 2/Mortal Kombat fighting games days the 2D Shmup market was very popular in both Japan and the west respectively and it was very well loved by video gamers during that era for sure. But once Street Fighter 2 came out, and later its main competitor Mortal Kombat came out in the Arcades with the fighting game boom. It was the beginning of the end of the 2D Shmup market in the west as said by OPCFG in the top 10 overrated list with Street Fighter 2: http://opcfg.kontek.net/archive/overrated.html but even with the Street Fighter 2/Mortal Kombat fighting game crazy came in they where critically/commercially successful Shmups released during that time period such as Konami Axelay and Compile shmups such as Space Megaforce. But the game that was ultimately responsible for killing 2D Shmup in the west is Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy for the Atari Jaguar even much more so than the Street Fighter 2/Mortal Kombat/fighting game boom. This game was the equivalent to what Yoshi's Story was of being responsible for killing 2D games on console systems. Where once Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy on the Atari Jaguar came out, it's what everyone associated 2D Shmups with, so whenever a new one was announced, people would automatically think it'd suck because they were expecting it to be like Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy because of the bad rep that Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy had https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Mc ... #Reception. And to this day and age, 2D Shmups still are cursed by Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy, because even with well received 2D Shmups like TreasureIkaruga. They still have yet to be mega popular/successful like in the 80's/early 90's period!

In the early 2000's when both Grand Theft Auto III and Halo came out and made both open world gangster games/FPS more popular during the time period. It was the slow beginning of the end of 3D platformers on consoles, but the game that I think that was responsible for killing that market is even much more so than Grand Theft Auto III and Halo is Kao the Kangaroo on the Sega Dreamcast. And much like both Yoshi's Story on the N64 and Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy on the Atari Jaguar from before. Where once Kao the Kangaroo on the Sega Dreamcast came out, it's what everyone associated 3D platformers with, so whenever a new one was announced, people would automatically think it'd suck because they were expecting it to be like Kao the Kangaroo because of the bad rep that Kao the Kangaroo had http://videogamecritic.com/dchl.htm?e=79158#rev843. And even though some well received 3D platformers did come out like Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper,Ratchet and Clank, Mario Sunshine, etc. It was much less the the 5th Gen consoles when more was made and much more critically/commercially successful games in the 3D platformer genre did come out. And it became even more so when the infamous Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 on Xbox 360/PS3 came out ruining the 3D platformer genre reception big time, and then when the infamous Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare came out. 3D platformers became mostly non existent during the 7th Gen/early 8th Gen where it was nothing but dudebro FPS games left and right, and even well received 3D platformers like the 3D Mario games during that era became few and far between. And it was not until recently that 3D platformers on consoles became relevant again thanks to the recent Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy!

Any other moments where certain games that killed/ruined the genres Reception in certain regions/consoles/gave negative stigmas, etc. I would love to see what was the game that killed Japanese games on consoles during the 7th gen/early 8th Gen where western games where far more popular during that era as many Japanese games had a negative rep among critics/gamers during the 7th gen/early 8th Gen?

Sonicx9 wrote:"Once Yoshi's Story came out, it's what everyone associated 2D games with, so whenever a new one was announced, people would automatically think it'd suck because they were expecting it to be like Yoshi's Story."

This is a silly way to look at it. 3D had established itself years earlier as the new paradigm for technical prowess (true) and design sophistication (very debatable). People didn't associate 2D games with Yoshi's Story; they associated 2D games including that one with the 16-bit era. 2D in the late '90s was primitive, limited, and passé in the public mind, and Yoshi's Story wouldn't have changed that even if it had been a masterpiece. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night actually was a masterpiece and didn't do squat.

Sonicx9 wrote:But the game that was ultimately responsible for killing 2D Shmup in the west is Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy for the Atari Jaguar even much more so than the Street Fighter 2/Mortal Kombat/fighting game boom. This game was the equivalent to what Yoshi's Story was of being responsible for killing 2D games on console systems. Where once Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy on the Atari Jaguar came out, it's what everyone associated 2D Shmups with, so whenever a new one was announced, people would automatically think it'd suck because they were expecting it to be like Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy because of the bad rep that Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy had

Uh, no. No! What is this? The number of people who owned a Jaguar at all is a fraction of the number that played good shoot-em-ups on the 16-bit systems and in the arcades, and the number of Jaguar owners who bought Trevor McFur is a fraction of that. How on Earth could that game possibly have made a difference?

Sonicx9 wrote:Where once Kao the Kangaroo on the Sega Dreamcast came out, it's what everyone associated 3D platformers with, so whenever a new one was announced, people would automatically think it'd suck because they were expecting it to be like Kao the Kangaroo because of the bad rep that Kao the Kangaroo had http://videogamecritic.com/dchl.htm?e=79158#rev843. And even though some well received 3D platformers did come out like Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper,Ratchet and Clank, Mario Sunshine, etc.

Stop right there. You just disproved your own point! The Jack and Daxter and Ratchet & Clank series were incredibly popular, selling millions and millions of copies... but you're going to call that some kind of slump because you want to believe that Kao the Kangaroo, a game very few people played for a system few even owned, somehow managed to chart the course of public opinion? Why? How many people even knew about that game?

Sonicx9 wrote:Any other moments where certain games that killed/ruined the genres Reception in certain regions/consoles/gave negative stigmas, etc. I would love to see what was the game that killed Japanese games on consoles during the 7th gen/early 8th Gen where western games where far more popular during that era as many Japanese games had a negative rep among critics/gamers during the 7th gen/early 8th Gen?

There are none, because that's not how the world works. E.T. didn't kill the 2600; a market saturated with fly-by-night trash killed it. The Jaguar, Sega CD, and 3DO didn't fail because of Cybermorph, Night Trap, and Plumbers Don't Wear Ties; they failed because their libraries as a whole were unimpressive - and in the 3DO's case, because the system itself cost $700. Those early-'90s systems are pitifully small in their impacts and libraries, but none of them were killed by any single game - and you expect to find the single game that caused the international decline of an entire nation's game industry? That game doesn't exist. You might be able to find a scapegoat like Final Fantasy XIII as a convenient representative of some of the industry's worse ills, but it would be nonsensical to hold the game responsible for them.

If you genuinely want to know what's undermining Japanese console games, it isn't hard at all to find actualanalysis on the Internet. Even Wikipedia covers the main issues in a few paragraphs: the industry itself is closed to outsiders and creatively myopic, and consoles have lost most of their market share in Japan to handhelds and phones. When talent, imagination, and revenue shrink, the effect should be obvious.

Obscure games that nobody played did not ruin genres. Not only did Trevor Mcfur not ruin a genre, it likely had had zero effect on the world. I doubt even high selling, low reviewed games have negative impacts on genres. The closest thing I can think of is Metroid Other M, which put the Metroid franchise into hibernation for about a decade, but it didn't really kill any genres.

It's not impossible for a major flop to poison the public's view of a genre. It's also possible for a major flop to convince companies to invest in other genres.

I read an essay once, can't remember where, which suggested Atari's poor Pac-Man port hurt the public's confidence in video games, or at least Atari. The author compared reviews of games before and after Pac-Man. The reviews from before tended to defend games as if to justify them as a legitimate hobby; the reviews after tended to pick the game apart. Even if the game got good reviews the reviews seemed jaded; the reviewers had to remind everyone how bad Pacman was.

pacman000 wrote:It's not impossible for a major flop to poison the public's view of a genre. It's also possible for a major flop to convince companies to invest in other genres.

I read an essay once, can't remember where, which suggested Atari's poor Pac-Man port hurt the public's confidence in video games, or at least Atari. The author compared reviews of games before and after Pac-Man. The reviews from before tended to defend games as if to justify them as a legitimate hobby; the reviews after tended to pick the game apart. Even if the game got good reviews the reviews seemed jaded; the reviewers had to remind everyone how bad Pacman was.

Wow. I would LOVE to read actual old reviews of early games, when the industry was in its infancy. If you know where I can find these things, let me know...

Once I got to the first mention of Trevor McFur in the original post, I actually stopped to reevaluate what I had just read, because I was worried I hadn't yet realized that it was all sarcasm or some kind of parody...

pacman000 wrote:It's not impossible for a major flop to poison the public's view of a genre. It's also possible for a major flop to convince companies to invest in other genres.

I read an essay once, can't remember where, which suggested Atari's poor Pac-Man port hurt the public's confidence in video games, or at least Atari. The author compared reviews of games before and after Pac-Man. The reviews from before tended to defend games as if to justify them as a legitimate hobby; the reviews after tended to pick the game apart. Even if the game got good reviews the reviews seemed jaded; the reviewers had to remind everyone how bad Pacman was.

pacman000 you have a good point about a major flop to poison the public's view of a genre. What my post was about was relating with FlyingOmelette.com point on how Yoshi's Story was the game being responsible for killing 2D games on console systems at that time and remained like this up until the 7th Gen making it go to a slump.

And what I did was take some lesser known games that might have done a similar thing to what Yoshi's Story did during that time frame because I have noticed something.

There was a time that 2D Shmups where very popular and beloved in the west just like in Japan where they where king at that time period. But once the Street Fighter 2/Mortal Kombat fighting game boom started it was slowly waning in popularity in the west. But once a poorly received game in the genre like Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy came out. The 2D Shmups market in the west mostly crashed and burn as it was mostly non-existent sense then. I mean how many 2D Shmups in the west got well received by professional critics in 1994 to the present moment, not that many. Yes you had exceptions that where well like such as Ikaruga. But even then 2D Shmups became super Niche similar to how Japanese games on console became super Niche during the 7th Gen/early 8th Gen where there where a share of Japanese games that where well received like many of Nintendo offerings, Demon/Dark Souls/Bloodborne, Platinum Games offerings, etc. But even then, 90% of the Japanese games during that time period got panned by critics just like how 90% of 2D Shmups in the west got panned by critics for similar reasions?

I'd say it's less that bad games can kill a genre, so much as a disappointing experience can crystalize pre-existing opinions. For many gamers, the not nearly as bad as it's reputation suggests ET will always be the perfect cross between the Atari 2600's limited hardware, and everything wrong with the way movie tie-ins are planned. The original NES Final Fantasy was released unfinished, with broken mechanics (INT does nothing, elemental weapon damage isn't working, etc) , and when combined with the incredibly repetitive Dragon Warrior (we didn't know Akira Toriyama back then, so it got no points for his involvement), they nearly killed off the JRPG market in America.

Most people couldn't handle that much mindless grinding for so little reward.

Mind you, even a good gameplay experience might not be enough.

Just look at 2d fighting. In the late 90's to early 2000''s, Capcom and SNK went out of their way to use low resolution sprites, long after they were still acceptable. And fans of the big 2d franchises were taught to expect disappointment - between Street Fighter III, Mark of the Wolves, and Mortal Kombat IV, fan favorite characters were thrown away in favor of far less charismatic replacements. It's no wonder why Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Dead or Alive, and Soul Calibur were the new AAA experience, despite being too complex for most gamers. (I'm not complaining. Virtua Fighter is missed.)

To sum up, gamers just go where ever they're going to have a good time. The definitions are subjective, and prone to bias, but that's the entertainment industry. Movies are much the same - just look at the Western.